Working Nomad Forum

travelfish · WN Superstar

A lesser-known point about Adsense is that when used in multiple places on the one page, the best paying adverts are loaded first.

What this means is that is you have a typical article page, with a leaderboard advert at the top and a big box plonked into the body of your story, the best paying adverts will be loaded into the leaderboard, while lesser-paying adverts will be in the box in your story.

The problem with this is that people are FAR more likely to click on adverts in the story box, than on the leaderboard, so while you're still earning money, you're not earning as much as you should.

To get around this, you want the best-paying adverts to load in the story box and the lesser-paying CPC and CPM adverts to show in the leaderboard and an easy way to do this is to use CSS to place the leaderboard where you want it, but actually have the code for it after the adsense code for the story box. I've been rotating this system of dealing with leaderboards on the Travelfish site and we've seen the 14-day moving average for eCPM more than double.

Here's an example which places a leaderboard towards the top of the page (play with the positioning to get it to fit in your page) -- the actual code can be anywhere in your HTML file, but the banner will still display at the top of the page:

Kirsty · WN Senior Member

I don't have any leaderboard ads but that's a great tip, thanks. I knew about the highest paying ads being first in your code but didn't think there would be ways around it. Sneaky... I like it!
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Neale · WN Senior Member

zark · WN Senior Member

I think this is extraordinarily good advice - the code is beyond my limited skills at the moment, but what it means to me is that I will no longer have my FIRST adsense ads near the the very top of the page. I will put them down where more "heat maps" suggest they should go anyway - otherwise I am wasting their power.

I recently made some changes on a website and got a higher click through rate, but the value of the clicks went down - and I am sure it is related to exactly what is suggested here . . . I've been looking for ways to double my Adsense income (which is not insignificant) and I have moved forward quite well - but this will put a little polish on the method I think.

Thank YOU for the good ideas.

On another note - I have a one site that has a really extraordinary click through and value rate - so I have been taking that design and using it with most of my new sites - I think the effect will carry over. Happy to take income wherever I can find it.

I think I am seeing that your suggestion is related to that website producing so well or is at least one aspect of it.
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Webby · WN Admin

That is great advice and shows you the power of using CSS to manage web page layout....
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DrToast · WN Superstar

Has anyone implemented this tip?

Can this work on a blog? I have blocks of adsense code on my site. The bottom one has a much higher CTR and I'd like to get the higher paying ads there. The two adsense codes are in different .php files. Will this still work? Confused

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midlifetravel · WN Superstar

Fascinating thread - DrT how do you know that you have different CTR rates between the different blocks of ads?
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PT · WN Senior Member

You can do it by setting up channels. I could explain how to do it, but I am sure google already has info on this on it site.
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midlifetravel · WN Superstar

Ah got it - I have got url channels but ignored the other option which is what I want - thanks
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zark · WN Senior Member

I have to confess to having quite mixed feelings about Adsense on my sites.

While I make a very nice chunk of money each year, I can't help but feeling that those very clicks might have bought what I was trying to sell and instead of 54 cents, I might have scored 54 dollars. Sure, I can block direct competition, but then the rate per click will go way down and then it just takes up valuable "above the fold" space.

I'm giving serious thought to having a few of my new sites run naked without Adsense.

Has anyone here ever sworn off the Adsense juice and had their overall performance improve? Or, had a well-performing site take a dive after adding Adsense?

Anyone done an A-B-A study or seen any research on it?
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